Maxwell's Demon, postulated by James Clerk Maxwell in 1867, is believed to be impossible because it violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.

According to 2nd Law, you can't extract energy/work from the "sink" (likewise, you can't extract it from the Vacuum)

But if we had a magical Maxwell's Demon, we could. And if, say, I wanted to push off the Vacuum and its random fluctuations, I could use my pet Demon to keep track of each and every fluctuation, to push off each and every one as it appears, to propel myself without expending any propellant.

Yet of course Maxwell's Demon is supposed to be impossible.

Scientists now claim to have implemented a photonic version of Maxwell's Demon -- a Maxwell's Ghost, if you will.

In the photonic version, the physicists replaced the boxes of gas particles with two pulses of light. They implemented the demon using a combination of a photodetector, which can measure the number of photons from each pulse, and a feed-forward operation, which like the open door can escort the brighter beam (with more photons) in one direction and the dimmer beam (with fewer photons) in the other. The different beams fall on different photodiodes, which generate an electric current that goes to a capacitor, but from opposite directions. If the pulse energies were equal, they would cancel out. But the imbalance in the pulse energies—and in the resulting photoelectric charge—is what charges the capacitor.

Even though the researchers did not aim to realize optimal work extraction, it's possible that some type of Maxwell's demon could one day have practical applications.

"Often we have more information available than thermodynamics supposes," Dahlsten said, explaining that things are normally not fully random and have a degree of predictability. "We can then use demon set-ups such as this one to extract work, making use of that information. Similarly, we can use extra information to reduce work costs of, for example, cooling systems. Personally I think that sort of technology will have a real impact on meeting the energy challenge facing the world."

Due to differences between the photonic implementation and previous implementations of Maxwell's demon, traditional theoretical models do not provide a clear path for connecting work extraction to the information acquired by measurement in a fundamental way. So the researchers derived a new model that accounts for the subtleties of the new set-up, in which they relate work extraction to the information acquired by measurement.The researchers hope that the new model will lead to a better understanding of the link between information and thermodynamics, which is necessary for understanding thermodynamics at the microscale and below. As the scientists explain, recent developments of technologies consisting of just a single or few particles require a better understanding of microscale thermodynamics, similar to how the steam engine drove scientists to better understand macroscopic thermodynamics in the 19th century.

A theory of of microscale thermodynamics could have a variety of applications, including making energy-harvesting technology more efficient. It could also allow researchers to investigate the role of quantum coherence in thermodynamics, with applications in quantum information technologies.

"We are already thinking of ways in which features such as entanglement can be introduced in future experiments based on this one, as our interests gravitate around quantum information," Dahlsten said.

Maybe Musk is right - maybe we're about to "summon the Demon" - or perhaps its Ghost.

As we learn to harness quantum systems for information processing, will we also learn to harness them to do work, and even to obtain energy?Will we one day be able to travel by Space Ghost from Coast-to-Coast?

Maxwell's Demon, postulated by James Clerk Maxwell in 1867, is believed to be impossible because it violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.

According to 2nd Law, you can't extract energy/work from the "sink" (likewise, you can't extract it from the Vacuum)

Note this works only in a total energy (closed) system. Localized.

What about spontaneous pair production out of vacuum, from where we get Hawking radiation, which allows the evaporation of black holes?

Statistically over a large enough region, energy is conserved though still.

(From the fictional universe of the military sci-fi series Stargate, they have recursive mini-universes inside of a "subspace bubble" (which I assume to mean an extrusion of normal spacetime w/o an interface that is 1-1/onto, how? An "underspace", with hyperspace being the "overspace", corresponding to the "upstairs"/"downstairs operators of Cherns Simons as applied to an energy only de Sitter spacetime. )

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But if we had a magical Maxwell's Demon, we could. And if, say, I wanted to push off the Vacuum and its random fluctuations, I could use my pet Demon to keep track of each and every fluctuation, to push off each and every one as it appears, to propel myself without expending any propellant.

Yet of course Maxwell's Demon is supposed to be impossible.

Keep also in mind MEMS systems ...

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Scientists now claim to have implemented a photonic version of Maxwell's Demon -- a Maxwell's Ghost, if you will.

In the photonic version, the physicists replaced the boxes of gas particles with two pulses of light. They implemented the demon using a combination of a photodetector, which can measure the number of photons from each pulse, and a feed-forward operation, which like the open door can escort the brighter beam (with more photons) in one direction and the dimmer beam (with fewer photons) in the other. The different beams fall on different photodiodes, which generate an electric current that goes to a capacitor, but from opposite directions. If the pulse energies were equal, they would cancel out. But the imbalance in the pulse energies—and in the resulting photoelectric charge—is what charges the capacitor.

Even though the researchers did not aim to realize optimal work extraction, it's possible that some type of Maxwell's demon could one day have practical applications.

"Often we have more information available than thermodynamics supposes," Dahlsten said, explaining that things are normally not fully random and have a degree of predictability. "We can then use demon set-ups such as this one to extract work, making use of that information. Similarly, we can use extra information to reduce work costs of, for example, cooling systems. Personally I think that sort of technology will have a real impact on meeting the energy challenge facing the world."

Due to differences between the photonic implementation and previous implementations of Maxwell's demon, traditional theoretical models do not provide a clear path for connecting work extraction to the information acquired by measurement in a fundamental way. So the researchers derived a new model that accounts for the subtleties of the new set-up, in which they relate work extraction to the information acquired by measurement.The researchers hope that the new model will lead to a better understanding of the link between information and thermodynamics, which is necessary for understanding thermodynamics at the microscale and below. As the scientists explain, recent developments of technologies consisting of just a single or few particles require a better understanding of microscale thermodynamics, similar to how the steam engine drove scientists to better understand macroscopic thermodynamics in the 19th century.

A theory of of microscale thermodynamics could have a variety of applications, including making energy-harvesting technology more efficient. It could also allow researchers to investigate the role of quantum coherence in thermodynamics, with applications in quantum information technologies.

"We are already thinking of ways in which features such as entanglement can be introduced in future experiments based on this one, as our interests gravitate around quantum information," Dahlsten said.

Kind of like how a heat pump works.

This has been done in limited form as a thermal sink for LED lights (helped the entrepreneur at N.V. Phillips get out the patent and sell his company, about five years ago.

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Maybe Musk is right - maybe we're about to "summon the Demon" - or perhaps its Ghost.

As we learn to harness quantum systems for information processing, will we also learn to harness them to do work, and even to obtain energy?

Serra and co-workers considered a two-level quantum system based on the nuclear spin of a carbon atom. Preparing this spin system in an equilibrium state and then driving it out of equilibrium using magnetic fields, the researchers focused on controlling the associated entropy production. They did so by implementing a Maxwell’s demon in the form of a feedback control mechanism. In a nutshell, the mechanism works as follows: it acquires and stores information about the state of the carbon atom using an auxiliary hydrogen nucleus; it then applies magnetic fields to the carbon nucleus that are conditioned on the state of the hydrogen nucleus. The authors demonstrate that, by performing such conditioned manipulations, the entropy production can be controlled and even reduced. They also show that the amount of entropy production is in excellent agreement with models of nonequilibrium thermodynamics that account for both thermal and quantum fluctuations and the feedback control mechanism.

The acquisition of thermodynamic quantities in a nonequilibrium setting, such as the entropy produced in the authors’ experiment, is notoriously difficult in its own right (as demonstrated in a previous study). Serra and colleagues’ inclusion of a feedback control unit into such a setting represents an important development in the growing interdisciplinary field of quantum thermodynamics. The techniques employed by the authors in this work could be used to help control and enhance the performance of the thermal machines of the future. And when combined with current progress in machine learning, studies such as this promise to inspire a new era of what one might call quantum cybernetics.

This has been done in limited form as a thermal sink for LED lights (helped the entrepreneur at N.V. Phillips get out the patent and sell his company, about five years ago.

I remember when I was pretty young, and learned that gas was mostly empty space full of particles bashing around like cannonballs, wondering if you could have a material that acted like a grid of one way trapdoors.

With particles bouncing off only one side and going straight through from the other, you could have a sheet of cloth that felt up to 10 tons of pressure on just one side.

Since then I have wondered if there would be ( analogous to a heatpump ) a version of this material that did not violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics but could still be more efficient than brute force ways of pushing air such as a propeller.

I remember when I was pretty young, and learned that gas was mostly empty space full of particles bashing around like cannonballs, wondering if you could have a material that acted like a grid of one way trapdoors.

With particles bouncing off only one side and going straight through from the other, you could have a sheet of cloth that felt up to 10 tons of pressure on just one side.

Science fiction writer Geoffrey Landis proposed the idea of a molecular sieve which could be used on Mars to separate out the trace amounts of Oxygen from the CO2 atmosphere. So analogously to what you've said, the sieve would allow the O2 molecules to get through, but leave the CO2 molecules stuck on the other side, so that you'd be able to collect O2.

I remember reading that scientists had used carbon nanotubes to make a molecular sieve that could purify water:

But these things don't need Maxwell's Demon - they just needs a hole of a particular size.

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Since then I have wondered if there would be ( analogous to a heatpump ) a version of this material that did not violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics but could still be more efficient than brute force ways of pushing air such as a propeller.

Yeah, and I'd also imagine that the same idea could be applied to any situation involving randomness. Just as you imagine the magical device which can act on the random movements of the air molecules to selectively exploit the ones which are going in the right direction to help you travel, likewise I'd imagine something similar to act on the random Vacuum Fluctuations in empty space to selectively steal momentum from them for travel in a particular direction.Can we somehow create a Maxwell's Demon which would allow us to do this?Again, this would intuitively be seen as something like a violation of the 2nd Law, but the Quantum World isn't constrained by the 2nd Law. Can we exploit a Quantum loophole to steal momentum from the Vacuum? Can we decrease Entropy, to take an object that is in Equilibrium with the Vacuum in regard to momentum, and Disequlibrate it so that it starts accelerating?Do the EMdrive or MEGA contraptions do this?

Incidentally, although the idea for Maxwell's Demon was proposed by Maxwell himself, it was Lord Kelvin who later actually gave it the name "Maxwell's Demon", to emphasize the intelligence required for it to function.

Now that we're learning how to exploit Quantum phenomena for computing purposes, can we also exploit them to set up Feedback and Control Loops, to create "intelligent Demons" that will thrash it out with the random processes, to "sift the wheat from the chaff" - ie. produce coherent order from disorder - effectively lowering entropy in a situation, even if energy expended in the process means we still conform to 2nd Law's requirement of increasing the Entropy of the Universe as a whole?

"Although the violation is only on the local scale, the implications are far-reaching," Vinokur said. "This provides us a platform for the practical realization of a quantum Maxwell's demon, which could make possible a local quantum perpetual motion machine."

Just as EMdrive has been accused of opening the door to free energy, likewise a free energy perpetual motion machine based on Maxwell's Demon could likewise open the door to massless propulsion. Maxwell's Demon is about obtaining information and exploiting it for a random chaotic system to selectively act upon it and turn it into a less chaotic system. Likewise, it should be possible to apply this approach to the chaos of the Dynamic Vacuum and its fluctuations, by selectively pushing off them to achieve coherent motion in a particular direction.

Why am I reminded of High-Frequency Trading on the stock market?In that case, your trading software is your Maxwell's Demon, and it's intelligently acting to exploit local short term movements/fluctuations in the stock market, to quickly cash in on them with trades that generate small profits. Such tiny little exploits, if carried out over and over again at high speed, can generate lots of profit at lower risk. (Which tells me that if Quantum Computing is ever applied to trading on the stock market, then the days of trading will be over.)

The violation is only a local illusion. Globally the second law is just fine. The uncertainty principal looks like a violation of conservation of energy but isn't. Bell's theorem looks like faster than light communication but isn't. QM makes things complicated in ways that make it hard to put into words.

And I don't think there is any use for quantum computers in high speed trading. What counts is how fast you can communicate trades and quantum computers do not help here.

The violation is only a local illusion. Globally the second law is just fine. The uncertainty principal looks like a violation of conservation of energy but isn't. Bell's theorem looks like faster than light communication but isn't. QM makes things complicated in ways that make it hard to put into words.

Oh well, maybe one day DeBroglie-Bohm will help make things feel less complicated for all of us.

Globally, the 2nd Law is fine, as the universe does continue to expand. But entropy only increases for the macroscopic universe - for the quantum universe, time is symmetric, there is no arrow, and quantum processes are reversible.But quantum objects and their statistical behaviors seem to be able to affect each other behind the scenes, and that's how we're able to have things like quantum computing. If we can extract information from quantum systems, why can't we extract energy?

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And I don't think there is any use for quantum computers in high speed trading. What counts is how fast you can communicate trades and quantum computers do not help here.

I've read that these HFT companies co-locate on the same premises as the trading exchange, trying to be put on the same or adjacent network nodes, for minimum latency. But processing time counts too. Imagine if you could use quantum computing to perform more sophisticated calculations instantaneously to optimize your chances for profitable trades.

I've read that these HFT companies co-locate on the same premises as the trading exchange, trying to be put on the same or adjacent network nodes, for minimum latency. But processing time counts too. Imagine if you could use quantum computing to perform more sophisticated calculations instantaneously to optimize your chances for profitable trades.

But it isn't clear what calculation in the financial sector would benifit from quantum computers. On most problems quantum computers can be no faster than classical computers. In fact there is no proof that quantum computers are faster on any problem. There is a quantum algorithm for factoring large integers that is exponentially faster than any known classical algorithm. But there is no proof that such a classical algorithm does not exist. They strongly suspects it but there is no proof.

Sometime in the next year or so they expect to get stronger evidence of the superiority of quantum computers with boson sampling experiments. Still not a proof but being wrong has massive implications elsewhere.

But it isn't clear what calculation in the financial sector would benifit from quantum computers. On most problems quantum computers can be no faster than classical computers. In fact there is no proof that quantum computers are faster on any problem.

Grover's algorithm is quadratically faster than the best possible classical algorithm. But as far as I know, there's no proven case of super-polynomial speed-up.

As to Quantum Computing financial viability, no, its not - far from it (By the way, you can spot me in the conference photos if you know what to look for, as many of those on this forum who've met me in the flesh could also do.)

Could give a detailed analysis but don't see the reason to here. In a nutshell its valuable to the Alphabet's of the world because they are exhausting cloud farms of computers. So the cost is totally absorbed by services. But no where else. And to the Google's, the benefit is to shortcut traditional computing bottlenecks, and this is very slow in coming. Consider it an expensive "strategic advantage" for the next two decades.

The quantum mechanical universe holds many difficult to exploit advantages that firms / governments will wrestle with to exploit. China is attempting to catch-up/exceed American commercial advantages especially.

Greetings and salutations. Thank you for this platform of discussing this topic. Over the past few years I have been formulating through theoretical physics an advanced semi-related version of this states production. In my conjectures I refer to this state as 'Maxwell's angel'. A maxwellian information exchange state that is associative or inclusive to Hawking,Strominger and Perry photon hair hawking radiation. I will be publishing a large journal subject on hyper-drive systems and will be including this particular perspective in the overview. In these more advanced systems we can propose these are 'holo-drive' systems. This being that they obey holographic principles in their formulation. I am hoping to discuss this work on this forums platform as a secondary registry of my research, which is for transparency and awareness of the research going into advanced fields such as these. In regards to the Maxwell demon there are many properties of states and their quantum driven systems that produce a varying spectrum of outcomes in relation to maxwells demon. In this perspective, thermodynamics, is not a completely viable representation of a given field. As it may be useful for measurements, it can give you false positives in complex field arrangements such as the surface of the sun phenomena. I will be hoping to build on the work of White, Alcubierre, and the many many other advanced propulsion theorists, engineers and designers. Here is an example of the implementation of Maxwells angel in a photonic quantum 'driven' Fermi-Fini-Yorski pasta lasagne surface to allow space-time wells to cut the space and pull the ship through higher velocities as an operator of a v or 'lambda' hulled ship. Some details I can't discuss until more work is done on patent viability but I am looking forward to networking through this community to develop more detailed work on advanced propulsion as I will be developing and citing an enormous amount of papers and research, I hope to use this community as a secondary peer review for this research.

Can I also ask why you reference the DeLorean in your pic? Is there a time-travel angle to this idea? Wouldn't it have to be limited to affecting events beyond the light cone?

But anyway, the Dynamic Vacuum embodies absolute chaos and non-correlation. There are a vast myriad of miniscule effects happening at a small scale, in a completely chaotic and uncorrelated way, which we aren't ordinarily supposed to be able to take advantage of, as with any sink.

Yet the concept of Maxwell's Demon was posited to deal with this very type of situation. That's why we should look at this approach for dealing with the Vacuum.

I greatly appreciate your enthusiasm and interest in this subject. After some time, you may find there is still plenty of room for Maxwellian 'ghosts'. As Feynman often quipped on the nature of the sub structure of the universe; "There's plenty room at the bottom." I would like to thank you in advance for your perspective and interest in the subject, as while I have a very large amount of information to share over the coming several months, one person has only so much time and can only know so much in any given lifetime. So, I do know and respect that my colleagues are my teachers even if we are each others students at times.

Quote from: sanman

If you don't mind - could you please explain what you mean by "pasta lasagna" surface? It sounds like a very appetizing way to refer to a kind of spacetime manifold.Are you referring to the Calabi-Yau manifold?

We incorporate a modified fermi surface manifold to 'weakly' warp the space-time. The structural measurement groupings and complex multifield interaction are extremely complicated in lieu of various interpretations of quantum mechanics, QED, moduli spaces and string mechanics. While I do have a larger conjecture relative to aspects of the calabi yau interpretation, I do not feel that theory is complete enough to present as a method to explain the intrinsic details of this engineering configuration of the multi field landscape. I will use a more simplified little string construct, that is copied and bundled over groups of field interactions through group network theories over the more generally assumed undeterministic state as with Schrodinger, Heisenberg and DeBrogile-Bohm-Bell states. While these interpretations may be useful and often used at times, we aim more on discussing holometric interpretations of differential geometry, but revert back that interpretation to more moderately simplified hamiltonians, that are over larger algebraic fiber bundles. Being that the nature of the fields interactions is so vastly complex on the landscape function we focus on understanding their complex properties in more simplified terms because of the advanced non linear characteristics, turbulence and fractalization of the field equations in advanced systems. Incorporating a larger conjecture while solving for these equations in simulation would simply be too far removed and time consuming from finding the data that interprets the interaction as a stepping stone for its feasibility in practice. It would require a 1000 pages of equations to formally interpret and correct the details of the calabi yau manifold for cross referencing the interpretation of the interaction of what we wish to accomplish in our design schematic on a computer simulation. So for these purposes we explain through simpler strings. To highlight what embodies this interaction we wish to explore, I incorporated a modified Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou [1] Fini-Yorski lasagna, which is used in defining properties in super, hyper, and ultrasonic flows in quantum electro dynamics of collisionless and compressible plasmas in space,time and lightlike domains for instances such as neutron star crusts which have been extensively developed in recent years or Hawking, Cherenkov, and Unruh radiation in complex electro and magneto hydrodynamic flows.

Fermi, Pasta, Ulam, and a mysterious lady"The computations for the first-ever numerical experiment were performed by a young woman named Mary Tsingou. After decades of omission, it is time to recognize her contribution." http://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.2835154

Fermi–Pasta–Ulam–Tsingou recurrence; Fermi died before the report was written, with an acknowledgement to Tsingou for her work in programming the MANIAC simulations. Due to historical attitudes toward women working in technical fields, Mary Tsingou's contributions to the FPUT problem were largely ignored by the community until Dauxois (2008) published additional information regarding the development and called for the problem to be renamed to grant proper attribution."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi%E2%80%93Pasta%E2%80%93Ulam%E2%80%93Tsingou_problem

"Highly surprisingly, the simulations of Fermi, Pasta and Ulam and Tsingou revealed that, in the regime explored by the authors, the FPU chain does not obey the Boltzmann-Gibbs laws: it turns out that an initial long wave excitation does not properly spread to short waves within observable times. Even worse: instead of being ergodic, at low energy the FPU chain displays strong recurrent behavior, which seems to prevent it from ever reaching thermal equilibrium."http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Fermi_Pasta_Ulam_systems_(FPU):_mathematical_aspects

Can I also ask why you reference the DeLorean in your pic? Is there a time-travel angle to this idea? Wouldn't it have to be limited to affecting events beyond the light cone?

The DeLorean aspect is simply for presentability and a bit of humor as its use was because the structure was formatted for the concepts incorporation. There are many other aspects to that configuration that I haven't presented which I will go into extensive detail in the coming months. There is not a 'timetravel' aspect to this concept 'persay' other than advanced special relativity agreements.There are many many other components which incorporate time properties but they are not representative of time travel. It will may be confusing or misleading at times and may be misinterpreted as it will seem that we are talking about time loops and things of that nature, but these are not 'real' in their essence to the relation to the concept and its implication as they are only used as 'metaphor' in respect to the advanced engineering and computational structuring. So there is no 'time traveling' aspect, but wait until you see what I got under the hood... We will discuss the many advanced properties of the ADS light cone in Mirzakhani moduli spaces later on when we explore the sections of the Maxwell angel's splining diagrams in space,time, and lightlike domains.First we will go into the electro hydro dynamic solutions and fractals of ideal and non ideal fluids, as well as magnetic and phonon relationships with solitons, and the varying flavors of vortices in spacetime. I will be presenting an introduction to this discussion in the EM drive thread as this concept not only pertains to the EM and MEGA drive, but a few of my designs incorporate the EM-MEGA drive into this system.

Quote from: sanman

the Dynamic Vacuum embodies absolute chaos and non-correlation. There are a vast myriad of miniscule effects happening at a small scale, in a completely chaotic and uncorrelated way, which we aren't ordinarily supposed to be able to take advantage of, as with any sink.Yet the concept of Maxwell's Demon was posited to deal with this very type of situation. That's why we should look at this approach for dealing with the Vacuum.

We will be exploring a wide array of Maxwell demon relationships in varying states, as this phenomena not only applies to 'baths' but also spin states. The chaos and non linear effects I would suggest to be firstly focused on through turbulence equations and fractals in reflective and refractive interactions.

the Dynamic Vacuum embodies absolute chaos and non-correlation. There are a vast myriad of miniscule effects happening at a small scale, in a completely chaotic and uncorrelated way, which we aren't ordinarily supposed to be able to take advantage of, as with any sink.Yet the concept of Maxwell's Demon was posited to deal with this very type of situation. That's why we should look at this approach for dealing with the Vacuum.

We will be exploring a wide array of Maxwell demon relationships in varying states, as this phenomena not only applies to 'baths' but also spin states. The chaos and non linear effects I would suggest to be firstly focused on through turbulence equations and fractals in reflective and refractive interactions.

Here is an image of negative effective mass in an SOCBEC, and you can more clearly see the secondary spin property of the electro hydrodynamics.

I am wondering. What do you think happens to positrons when they are assimilated by the vacuum in a e-p pair annihilation. You mentioned a negative energy/mass in a SOCBEC. Is there some reverse time aspect or PT symetry possible for the existence of positrons till annihilation in which this symmetry is broken.

The smooth and growing deviation from theHermitian starting point A = 0 ends at a certain critical A(crit) where the two energiesmerge. Next, they form a conjugate pair which moves further in the complex plane.The PT symmetry of the system becomes spontaneously broken. The phenomenonof this type has been detected by the various methods in the spectra of many differentPT symmetric Hamiltonians

I also wanted to suggest this link : https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42978.msg1740386#msg1740386where I pointed out an experiment with a capacitor that may demonstrate an apparent polarization of vacuum. The video by David at the bottom, he derives some negative/positive energy term associated with a particular charge in the capacitor, and suggests an experiment to determine which is which at about 34 minutes in.

Personally thinking anti-matter is negative energy running backwards in time but it never really disappears after being annihilated in the vacuum. After annihilation PT symmetry broken till pair production again.

An as for me - effect of EMDrive create an impression, that there is an unknown periodic fluctuation of space structure, and EMDrive use it. So - they shoud research this fluctuations and determine their period and amplitude to use resonance for EMDrive acceleration effect. Such kind of drive will not obey to limitation of light speed in vacuum, because it will use changing in structure of vacuum itself.

The violation is only a local illusion. Globally the second law is just fine. The uncertainty principal looks like a violation of conservation of energy but isn't. Bell's theorem looks like faster than light communication but isn't. QM makes things complicated in ways that make it hard to put into words.

Oh well, maybe one day DeBroglie-Bohm will help make things feel less complicated for all of us.

Globally, the 2nd Law is fine, as the universe does continue to expand. But entropy only increases for the macroscopic universe - for the quantum universe, time is symmetric, there is no arrow, and quantum processes are reversible.But quantum objects and their statistical behaviors seem to be able to affect each other behind the scenes, and that's how we're able to have things like quantum computing. If we can extract information from quantum systems, why can't we extract energy?

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And I don't think there is any use for quantum computers in high speed trading. What counts is how fast you can communicate trades and quantum computers do not help here.

I've read that these HFT companies co-locate on the same premises as the trading exchange, trying to be put on the same or adjacent network nodes, for minimum latency. But processing time counts too. Imagine if you could use quantum computing to perform more sophisticated calculations instantaneously to optimize your chances for profitable trades.

Meh, Bohm only adds unneeded extra that pointlessly makes things more complicated. In the end you do calculations the same way. The pilot wave part only serves to show how it is deterministic. So it only resolves some philosophical angst while not really adding anything else.

And I call it Bohmian because DeBroglie rejected it. As did Einstein despite his love of determinism.

"Although the violation is only on the local scale, the implications are far-reaching," Vinokur said. "This provides us a platform for the practical realization of a quantum Maxwell's demon, which could make possible a local quantum perpetual motion machine."

Just as EMdrive has been accused of opening the door to free energy, likewise a free energy perpetual motion machine based on Maxwell's Demon could likewise open the door to massless propulsion. Maxwell's Demon is about obtaining information and exploiting it for a random chaotic system to selectively act upon it and turn it into a less chaotic system. Likewise, it should be possible to apply this approach to the chaos of the Dynamic Vacuum and its fluctuations, by selectively pushing off them to achieve coherent motion in a particular direction.

Why am I reminded of High-Frequency Trading on the stock market?In that case, your trading software is your Maxwell's Demon, and it's intelligently acting to exploit local short term movements/fluctuations in the stock market, to quickly cash in on them with trades that generate small profits. Such tiny little exploits, if carried out over and over again at high speed, can generate lots of profit at lower risk. (Which tells me that if Quantum Computing is ever applied to trading on the stock market, then the days of trading will be over.)

These guys claim to have already done it.

Foundations of PhysicsMarch 2014, Volume 44, Issue 3, pp 235-247Date: 14 Mar 2014Experimental Test of a Thermodynamic ParadoxD. P. Sheehan, D. J. Mallin, J. T. Garamella, W. F. SheehanAbstractIn 2000, a simple, foundational thermodynamic paradox was proposed: a sealed blackbody cavity contains a diatomic gas and a radiometer whose apposing vane surfaces dissociate and recombine the gas to different degrees (A2⇌ 2A). As a result of differing desorption rates for A and A2, there arise between the vane faces permanent pressure and temperature differences, either of which can be harnessed to perform work, in apparent conflict with the second law of thermodynamics. Here we report on the first experimental realization of this paradox, involving the dissociation of low-pressure hydrogen gas on high-temperature refractory metals (tungsten and rhenium) under blackbody cavity conditions. The results, corroborated by other laboratory studies and supported by theory, confirm the paradoxical temperature difference and point to physics beyond the traditional understanding of the second law.